Satanism and Witchcraft – The Occult and the West – Death

By: Dr. John Ankerberg, Dr. John Weldon; ©2003

Satanism is alive and well in America today. Drs. Ankerberg and Weldon begin an examination of the influence of witchcraft and satanic cults on western culture.

Satanism and Witchcraft: The Occult and the West – Death

[Caution: Contains graphic descriptions of satanic and witchcraft practices.]

Some members smoke a little pot…. Other members use cocaine because they believe it heightens their senses and gets them piqued to accept the spirits. Next we call upon Satan…. We ask the Prince of Darkness or sometimes lesser demons to come into our sanctuary. Once we feel the power around us—we know that Satan is here…. We may decide that on this certain night we’re only going to do destructive magick. The group will save up its demands for that night that concern hurting someone else. We would never hurt anyone within the group. But we couldn’t give a s___ about someone outside. —Satanic high priest Nolan Waters^[1]

I. Do you have human sacrifices?

S. Yes, mostly babies.

I. Where are the sacrifices held?

S. At houses in the woods….

There are three rings of guards. The first would stop somebody, tell him he’s on private property. The second would try to run you off. He might take a shot at you, but it would be just to scare you. The third would kill you. —Satanist describing eye witnessed killings^[2]

I’m convinced that our own nation is rapidly undergoing demonization. —Mark I. Bubeck, The Satanic Revival^[3]

In 1989 15 bodies were uncovered in a mass grave in Matamoros, Mexico, just a few miles from the Texas border. The victims, including one American, were murdered as part of the practices of Santeria (“worship of the saints”), which is a mixture of African tribal religion and Catholicism that has “white” and “black” forms. In this case, the particular form is called Palo Mayombe and had been syncretized with a mongrel variation of Satanism. Black magic, voodoo, and drug-smuggling were all involved. In Cuba, Santeria is called Palo Mayombe or Abaqua. In Haiti it is called Voodoo; in Brazil, Umbanda and Macumba. In its various forms, this religion has experienced significant growth in some cities of America, including Washington, D.C., Miami, Denver, and Tucson, and is responsible for drug trafficking, human sacrifices, and other felonies.^[4] But it is only one illustration of the increasing paganization of America.

In 1974 Arlis Perry, a young Stanford University student and committed evangelical Christian, was, while in California, kidnapped and horribly tortured and killed in a satanic ritual. She had, apparently, been attempting to witness to members of the group. As it turns out, “Son of Sam” murderer David Berkowitz was also apparently a member of this group— part of a linked nationwide satanic network which had ties to Charles Manson as well.^[5] In fact, Berkowitz “emphasized the hideous torture Arlis endured—indicating knowledge that went far beyond any newspaper account.”^[6] Berkowitz had smuggled a book out of jail. On pages 114 and 115 of Peter Haining’s The Anatomy of Witchcraft, he had written the follow­ing message on the top of the pages: “Stanford University” and, to the left, “Arlis Perry, hunted, stalked and slain, followed to California.”^[7]

From Haining’s book, the following text was underlined, “The shade of Aleister Crowley looms large in the area, but his excesses pale into significance compared to today’s devil worshippers” and “there can be no doubt that Manson exerted complete authority over his followers and when he preached to them that evil was good and that nothing he as their Christ/devil asked them to do could be wrong, they accepted it without question.” The quote continued, “Their lives were his for whatever purpose he chose… devoting themselves to drugs, music and magic.”^[8]

On another page ran the following notation of satanic murders:

Several years ago, at Port-Louis, a certain M. Picot made a pact with the Devil, assassinated a child and ate its heart still warm.

Last year, in the same town in January, a sorcerer called Diane tried to win the services of the Infernal Powers by slitting the throat of a seven-year-old boy and sucking his blood straight from the wound.^[9]

The text continued from the earlier quotation:

The bizarre and gruesome trial which followed… proved one of the most extraordinary in American legal history…. Counsel for the Prosecution asked the young woman if it was true that she regarded Manson as Satan and that she was one of his witches:

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“And you consider that witches have supernatural powers?”

“Yes.”

“Would you tell us what you thought your powers as a witch were?”

“I could do anything I wanted. I was made to believe I was a witch, right from the beginning. Charlie (Manson) said we were going to build this new culture and learn to control others by witchcraft.”

One of the men also expressed similar beliefs and devotion to Manson’s cause in the witness box:

“It’s hard to explain. It’s like nobody else counted but us and we would learn how to have all our desires fulfilled by using the same kind of magic that the witches used in ancient times. He told us that there wasn’t any right or wrong…. ‘There is no good, there is no bad. There is no crime, there is no sin.’… Everywhere he went he got this suicidal loyalty from everyone. He was big on Black Magic. It was pretty powerful stuff. He was continually hypnotizing us, not the way they do in night clubs but more like mental thought transference.”^[10]

Today, a dozen books collectively present evidence that Satanism has now gained an impressive hold in America and, because it seeks to destroy the foundation of American social and moral values, constitutes a genuine threat to society. Among these books are Jerry Johnson’s The Edge of Evil: The Rise of Satanism in North America (Word, 1989); Mark I. Bubeck, The SatanicRevival (Here’s Life, 1991); Ted Schwarz and Duane Empey, Satanism (Zondervan, 1989); Arthur Lyons, Satan Wants You: The Cult of Devil Worship in America (Mysterious, 1988); and Bob Larson’s Satanism (Nelson, 1989).

For example, Dr. Carl Raschke received his Ph.D. from Harvard and is an authority onthe history and philosophy of occult religion. He is currently professor of religious studies at the University of Denver and director of its Institute for Humanities. He is the author of a book whose title tells it all: Painted Black: From Drug Killers to Heavy Metal—The Alarming True Story of How Satanism Is Terrorizing Our Communities.

Maury Terry is an award-winning investigative journalist whose years of research re­sulted in The Ultimate Evil: An Investigation of American’s Most Dangerous Satanic Cult, which linked Manson and “Son of Sam” killer Berkowitz to a satanic networking. Arthur Lyons states in The Second Coming: Satanism in America, “Satanic cults are presently flourishing in possibly every major city in the United States and Europe…. The United States probably harbors the fastest growing and most highly-organized body of Satanists in the world.”^[11]

(to be continued)

Notes

1. ↑ Quoted in Larry Kahaner, Cults That Kill: Probing the Underworld of Occult Crime (New York: Warner, 1988).
2. ↑ Quoted in ibid.
3. ↑ Martin Bubeck, The Satanic Revival (San Bernardino, CA: Here’s Life, 1991).
4. ↑ Kanaher, Cults That Kill, pp. 112, 120, 126.
5. ↑ Maury Terry, The Ultimate Evil: An Investigation of America’s Most Dangerous Satanic Cult (Gar­den City, NY: Dolphin/Doubleday, 1987.
6. ↑ Ibid., p. 347.
7. ↑ Ibid., picture inserts after p. 346.
8. ↑ Citing Peter Haining, The Anatomy of Witchcraft (London: Souvenir Press, 1972), pp. 114-15. This material is on pp. 105-06 of the 1982 Taplinger edition.
9. ↑ Ibid., p. 143.
10. ↑ Ibid., pp. 107-08.
11. ↑ Arthur Lyons, The Second Coming: Satanism in America (New York: Dodd Mead & Co., 1970),pp. 3, 5.